Extraordinary: "Our Neighbors in Minneapolis or: What I Saw While I Was There". You want to read this.

[Amaryllis]

https://margaretkilljoy.substack.com/p/our-neighbors-in-minneapolis

Our Neighbors in Minneapolis
or: What I Saw While I Was There
Margaret Killjoy
Jan 26, 2026

snip

But it wasn’t cold enough to keep Minnesotans inside. It wasn’t so cold that people didn’t turn out, in the tens or hundreds of thousands, to fill the streets for the general strike. It wasn’t so cold that people didn’t pour out of their houses in their pajamas and crocs when they saw commotion outside, in case they could do anything to defend their communities from ICE. It wasn’t so cold that people didn’t resist what amounts to a foreign occupation of professional kidnappers. I’m not being hyperbolic, about the cold, about the pajamas, or the kidnappers.

The shortest version of what I saw is this: a few thousand federal officers are occupying Minnesota right now. They’re in Minneapolis, St. Paul, the suburbs, and even some of the smaller towns. No one wants them there—I’ve never seen a community half so united as the people of the Twin Cities.

ICE is there to kidnap black and brown people. They’re not subtle about their racism—even the local police have complained about how all of their off-duty non-white officers are being harassed by federal agents. Masked, unmarked men are simply snatching people out of their cars, throwing them into unmarked SUVs, and driving them away, often to never to see their loved ones again. People’s cars are left abandoned in the streets, sometimes still running, sometimes still in drive.

In response to this, many vulnerable people have essentially gone into lockdown. There are families that can’t leave their houses. Other people—friends, families, and neighbors—are looking out for them. The networks that are looking out for them are far and away the largest, most organized, and most successful networks like these I’ve ever seen, and they’re entirely decentralized. There is no central group or organization that is making this happen. It’s just people. People who are organized.